Hans Jedelshauser was a needlemaker from Ulm, who in 1579 had joined the Hutterite brotherhood in Moravia (most likely in Nikolsburg) together with his wife and children, and who five years later, in 1584, left this group together with his family and turned Catholic, probably under the influence of Christoph Erhard, then a priest in Nikolsburg. He signed a Widerruf (Recantation) in which he gave 12 reasons why he could no longer tolerate the Anabaptist way. This writing, very slanderous and artificial, is in the main work of Erhard himself, who, although well familiar with the Hutterites from personal contact, did not hesitate to accuse them of the worst vices. Three years after the event, Erhard published a small pamphlet entitled Zwelf wichtige und starke Ursachen Hansen Jedelshauser... warumb er mit seinem Weib... von den Widertauffern, so man Hutterischen Brüder nennt, sey abgetretten... sich aber zu der Catholischen Kirche bekehrt habe... (Ingolstadt, 1587, about 100 pp.). The name of Erhard appears only in the dedicatory preface. The Zwelf Ursachen covers only the first 28 pages; the rest is a similarly venomous slander against Luther, who is made mainly responsible for the origin and rise of Anabaptism. The pamphlet served a propaganda purpose in the fight of the growing Counter Reformation against both the sectarians and the Lutherans (copy in Mennonite Historical Library (Goshen, Indiana, USA)).